


Do It Anyway

by roxashighwind



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Menstruation, Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxashighwind/pseuds/roxashighwind
Summary: “What’s wrong, honey?” May is already passing her nephew a pint of ice cream, open with a spoon sticking out. “Bad day at school?” Her laptop, a clunky, old, monster of a thing, makes a grinding noise for a moment until she adjusts how it’s sitting on her lap.He groans, but takes the ice cream and jams the spoon into his mouth.--Peter's had a rough day at school and just wants to curl up, wallow in his grumpiness, and ride out his period in peace.





	Do It Anyway

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't supposed to get so big. It was just supposed to be a cute 'May comforts Peter' moment that blossomed into a little more than that. Maybe I'll continue this at some point/turn it into a series.

Peter curls up on the couch, head falling onto his aunt’s shoulder, whining softly.

“What’s wrong, honey?” May is already passing her nephew a pint of ice cream, open with a spoon sticking out. “Bad day at school?” Her laptop, a clunky, old, monster of a thing, makes a grinding noise for a moment until she adjusts how it’s sitting on her lap.

He groans, but takes the ice cream and jams the spoon into his mouth.

“Well I’m here if you want to talk about it.” She pats at his head, ruffles his hair, and returns to working on her homework. The online class is kicking her ass, but she’s not going to give up.

Peter eats two more very large spoonfuls of the triple chocolate caramel ice cream before he sighs and rubs his face on May’s shoulder. “Bad day, yeah,” he murmurs, and cuddles a little closer to her.

“Anything I can do to help?” she asks. Her fingers tap at the keyboard slowly; she’s never gotten the hang of typing quickly the way Peter can, but she manages just fine.

He makes a soft, unsure sound and shrugs. He eats another spoon of ice cream.

They sit in relative silence while May finishes her assignment. Finally, when the pint of ice cream is nearly empty and what’s left is pretty soupy, she closes the laptop and leans just a little bit forward to put it on the coffee table. She turns, plucks the ice cream from Peter’s loose grip, and adds that to the table as well. Finally, she pulls him against her chest, pressing her face against his hair. 

“Whatever’s going on, you know I’m here for you, right?”

He nods and wraps his arms around her. “Yeah.”

“Good.” She runs her fingers through his hair, lightly rubbing at his scalp as she goes. They stay like that, curled together on the couch with only the sounds of Queens outside their apartment window for background noise. 

“Got any ibuprofen?” Peter asks into the relative silence about twenty minutes later. 

May nods. “In my purse and in the bathroom cupboard.” 

He mumbles a soft thanks and untangles himself from her. He whines as he goes, and hunches.

She frowns, and sits up. “Heat pad is in the hall closet,” she calls as he disappears down the hall to the bathroom. May grabs the television remote from the coffee table and turns it on; there’s probably some comedy something on that would be a good distraction.

Peter comes back out a few minutes later in sweats and a large sweater. He pauses only long enough to plug the heat pad into the outlet nearest the couch before he curls up in the corner. He shoves the large square of cloth and heating mechanisms under his hoodie and curls around it. 

“Anything stand out to you?” she asks as she scrolls through the guide. She reaches out to give his arm a squeeze without taking her eyes off the screen. 

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?” 

May selects it, and settles back onto the couch. “What do you want for dinner?”

“More ice cream.”

“Besides ice cream,” she says with a laugh. “I can go to the thai place and pick up your favorite.” 

Peter shakes his head, and wraps his arms more firmly around his knees. 

Her heart goes out to him. She scoots over and wiggles her hand between the back of the couch and her nephew. She kneads at the muscles of his lower back as best she can with just one hand. “Sorry, buster. The heat pad will do you more good if you put it back between you and the couch. I’ll get the hot pad for your tummy.” 

She ruffles his hair when she gets up, and heads to the kitchen as the movie plays. “Be right back.” 

Peter whines again but does as May suggested. He slides the hot pad, gloriously warm, around until it’s against his back, squished in place by his body against the couch. “Chicken nuggets?” he calls, burying his hands in the sleeves of his sweater. 

“Could do that!” she calls back. She throws the rice-filled cotton tube into the microwave for a minute, and waits impatiently for it to heat. She hums soft and off-key, as the microwave works, and thinks about where the nearest McDonald's is to their apartment. 

The microwave dings and she retrieves the pack. “Here.” She offers it to Peter with another ruffle of his hair. “I’ll be back in a bit with some nuggets and ranch.”

“Barbeque,” he corrects. He settles the rice pack against his lower belly, between his sweater and the shirt underneath, and sighs heavily. “Oh that’s good.” 

May laughs and nods. “Barbeque. Send me a text if you need anything else, okay?” 

Peter nods and lets his slightly unfocused eyes settle on the television. He’s seen the movie a bunch of times, so it’s not like he really needs to pay attention, but he likes to watch Matthew Broderick traipse around Chicago.

Within five minutes of May being gone, he finds himself in tears; a combination of the horrendous cramps, his not-great day at school, and how absolutely grateful he is for May create a whirlwind of emotion that has him sobbing into the sleeve of his sweater. He wiggles his cell phone out of the pocket of his sweats around gross, snotty sobs, and types ‘kleenex and chocolate milk.’ It takes a second to send, and another ten minutes before the crying jag is out of his system. 

He has a headache by the time May gets back with the food, but he doesn’t want to move. 

“Catch,” May calls out after locking the deadbolts. She underhand tosses him a sixteen ounce bottle of chocolate milk, and smiles wide as he catches it one handed. “Good catch! Tissues next.” She throws a travel pack of tissues at him, more gently and a lot closer than the milk. 

“Those nuggets smell great,” Peter says with a soft groan as he sits up straighter. The dual heating has made his muscles relax, and his body is giving him a bit of a break after the crying. His stomach growls, loud in a quiet spot of the movie.

May chuckles. “Someone’s hungry.” She drops the McDonald’s bag onto the middle couch cushion. “There’s sixty nuggets in there and I want at least a couple, mister.” Instead of settling on the couch, she heads to the kitchen to grab a glass of water from the tap.

Peter crosses his legs and twists on the couch until he’s facing the bag of food. With quick hands, he empties the three big boxes of mcnuggets into the bag, and fishes out the two large fries to dump into one of the chicken mcnugget boxes. The barbeque packets come out next, and he pushes up his sleeves before digging in. 

“Thanks,” he manages between shoving sauce coated chicken bits into his mouth.

She shrugs. “I didn’t want to make something for dinner anyway. She grabs a couple fries, munching on them happily. “Feeling better?”

He shrugs, and shovels a handful of fries into his face to keep from having to answer immediately.

“Chew before you choke, honey,” May warns with a laugh. 

Peter rolls his eyes, and is about to say something but it comes out as a whine. He hunches, arms around his stomach, and groans. “Fuck.”

May gets up from the couch. “I’ll get the Advil. Gimme the rice pack?” She holds out her hand, and it takes Peter a few moments of whining before he gives it to her. 

“Ned wanted to come over but -”

“Just because your period is kicking your butt right now doesn’t mean you can’t have your best friend over, Peter,” she replies, placing the rice pack into the microwave to heat. She heads back to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. “Call him.”

“But Aunt May,” he groans.

She comes back with the bottle of Advil in hand. “You’ll feel better with Ned taking your mind off it.” 

He knows she’s right; Ned is good at distracting him with funny videos or homework or weird pondrances of the universe. “Ugh.” 

May gets the bottle open on the second try and shakes out a couple pills for Peter. She offers them to him, and smiles when he takes them. She grabs a couple more fries before half-dancing to the kitchen to retrieve the pad from the microwave. 

The cramps let up, and Peter takes the pills with a swallow of chocolate milk. “Yeah, yeah.” He digs his phone out from under his thigh, stuffs another nugget into his mouth, and shoots a quick message to Ned. 

“Are you doing…  _ Stark Internship _ ... things tonight?” May asks as she passes him the hot rice pack. 

Peter shakes his head, eats another mcnugget. He carefully settles the rice pack into his lap with a grateful sigh. “I already asked someone to fill in for me.” His phone buzzes in his hand and he brightens when he reads the text. “Ned says he’ll be over after dinner.” 

“Sounds good.” She takes a few more chicken mcnuggets and reaches out to ruffle his hair. “I’m going to my room. Let me know if you need anything, okay?” She stands, snags a small handful of fries, scoops up her laptop, and heads to her room. 

“Thanks, Aunt May.” He smiles at her back, finally pushing the crappy school day out of his mind as he scarfs down fast food and waits for his best friend to show up to watch some junk television.

**Author's Note:**

> check me out/hit me up on my [ tumblr. ](http://roxashighwind.tumblr.com)


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